Why is change important in an organization and how do you drive change? We had the change to discuss this issue with Corina Ghiatau, Organizational Development Manager at Orange Romania and current participant in the 4^th edition of our Women Talent Pool Programme. If you are curious about the concept of organizational change and would like to know more about the upcoming trends in HR and the importance of valuing gender equality in a company like Orange, then this interview is for you!

What does your position as an ‘Organizational Development Manager’ entail? What is organizational development?

In a nutshell, organizational development takes care of the successful organizational change and performance. It aligns people with systems in both ways: it uses behavioural science to help people function better within an organizational context or adapts and redesign the organizational processes, systems, culture to help people be engaged and find a space to grow in the company. OD operates with key concepts like organizational climate, culture, engagement, employee performance, organizational design, talent management, employee experience, wellbeing. It can use tools like organizational coaching, design thinking, trends, organizational and individual diagnosis tools. One of the most recent examples which shows how the Organizational Development team contributes to the organizational change, alignment and focus on future is the Performance Process reshape in which we facilitate an innovation and co-creation expedition, based on design thinking, in which 11 colleagues from all departments have the assignment from the company leaders to create a revolutionary way of managing performance in Orange Romania.

Organizational development enables us to
improve organizational effectiveness while
adhering to the organization’s culture and values.

What do you believe are the Human Recourse trends for the next 5 years?

A major trend is that companies are completely reinventing employee performance evaluation by focusing on creating more frequent and meaningful feedback to help employees and teams grow together.

Another major trend is the culture of coaching. Organizations now tend to use coaching to help individuals reach their full potential, to help them strengthen targeted skills, build the right attitude, align with team goals, improve relationships or remove blockages in their development.

The last trend that I believe will be central in the upcoming years is customer centricity, meaning that HR puts the internal customer in the middle of each new process design. The empathic company knows its’s employees at least as well as it knows its customers, therefore many authors talk about HR as the new marketing.

Companies are completely reinventing performance evaluation
by focusing on creating more frequent and meaningful feedback
to help both employees and teams grow together.

Orange, proud Premium member of WIL Europe is deeply committed to gender equality. How is it to work in a company that values female talents? Could you share some of its best practices?

Orange makes diversity and equality during recruitment and professional career a priority, this being reflected by the figures and the external recognition received.

We have successfully received and renewed our GEEIS (Gender Equality for European and International Standard) certification in 2015 and 2017, when it was enriched with the Diversity dimension. We have an overall approach based on fostering talent and encouraging the inclusion of all employees, regardless of their differences. Orange focuses specifically on workplace gender equality and equal remuneration and offers a number of benefits for the employees like weekly wellbeing activities (parenting courses, hobbies, psychological counselling), work-life balance options (flexible working program, short Friday, remote working, sabbatical leave, paternity and maternity leave, birth allowance, flexible insurance), constant employee feedback open channels

Orange fosters talent and encourages the inclusion of all employees,
regardless of their gender.

At WIL, we have a tradition to conclude the interview with a question from Proust’s questionnaire. We have picked the following question for you:   What do you most value in your colleagues?

As a humanist, coach and psychologist, I look very much at what makes every person shine. What I appreciate in others and I noticed it is a success factor in their personal and professional life is self-awareness: an inward understanding of who they are, what are their strengths s and what kind of persons they want to become.

Equally important is the external awareness: having an appreciation and an understanding of how other people see us, the color of their emotional background and what learning opportunity they offer to us.

I also appreciate creativity, open-mindedness and finally integrity and honesty!

Biography

With a background in organizational psychology, psychotherapy and coaching, Corina has more than 12 years of experience in HR. She developed and implemented organizational development processes and programs like Talent Management, Wellbeing, Engagement, Culture, Employee Experience, Coaching in Orange Romania, but also going through international missions in Orange Poland and Orange HR Europe team. She is a trained innovation facilitator and currently she is leading a creative team which designs employee journeys and applies customer centric and design thinking methodologies in HR.